VA outlines timeline for enterprise AI services contract competition

The Department of Veterans Affairs said it plans to release a final solicitation in October for a potential three-year Enterprise Artificial Intelligence Support Services contract. The contract would task a single third-party provider with rolling out artificial intelligence capabilities to 540,000 provisioned users across the department.

The scope of the third-party contract covers the full development lifecycle, including requirements refinement, architecture, development, integration, testing, security and accessibility remediation, deployment, and post-deployment iteration. The department emphasized the use of commercial AI products but left open the possibility of custom application development when a commercial tool is not appropriate or authorized.

VA plans to acquire core enterprise AI products and native vendor services separately and immediately before procuring the third-party services. Following both awards, the third-party provider will work with the first-party supplier to roll out enterprise AI capabilities via a series of six rollout waves.

The department intends the contract to support its broader goals of expanding AI access across the department, building an AI-ready workforce, reimagining workflows with AI-centric capabilities, investing in data and infrastructure for AI adoption, and running transparent AI governance.

The request for information asks industry to provide feedback on how VA could conduct a technical challenge as part of the evaluation, as well as on requirements, the firm-fixed-price structure, staffing, subcontracting, and pricing elements. Responses are due by 10 a.m. Eastern time on Oct. 7.